I Am Groot – Day 15 Challenge Painting

I actually painted two portraits for yesterday’s session. Considering that I am behind by a few, this is a good thing. What was even more fun is how fast Groot came together. No real under-painting needed. Lots of fun playing with textures and dry-brushing colour. Since I also specialize in landscape painting, this was like visiting an old and beloved friend.

For my portraits, I prefer to work on black canvases. In some cases, I can buy primed and ready to go black canvases but sometimes I can’t. My art supply store of choice (Curry’s) doesn’t always have them in stock. Some idiot (cough cough) keeps buying up their entire stock of them when they do get them in. But sometimes it’s an issue of the canvas size I want to use doesn’t come in black. And so I am forced to prime them myself.

Painting is almost a meditation for me. A zone thing. And it doesn’t matter if I’m priming canvases or painting actual things, the process of moving a wet and full brush across a surface is my heaven. I spent some time priming more 24″ x 12′ canvases recently and let some of the texture from the black stay. You can see it in the detail shot above.

Groot came together fast. He’s a simple guy and it was a matter of deciding where to start and then painting up layer upon layer of solid colour. Virtually no glazing happened at all.

There’s a lot more freedom when painting a non-human figure. Maybe because it’s easier to hold onto the likeness. Maybe because there are less fiddly bits, like how a shadow hits the nose. Getting shadows wrong on a human portrait can completely kill the likeness.

Mossy. Bark. Light and dark. This was a lot of fun to paint.

“I Am Groot”

24″ x 12″

Acrylic on canvas

Want prints or the original? Hop over to my store HEREor contact medirectly. I love it when my art finds a good home.

I’m currently in the midst of a 30 Paintings, 30 Days challenge! Follow along on Facebook,Twitter, and Tumblr to see the action as it happens. Want more info? You can check out the challenge here.